The widow of one of the five police officers killed after the invasion of the Capitol sued former President Donald Trump and two of his supporters for the death of his companion. The lawsuit, filed in a District of Columbia court on Thursday, the eve of the second anniversary of the insurrection, seeks at least $10 million in damages from each of the defendants.
Agent Brian Sicknick died on January 7, 2021, the day after the US Congressional Headquarters attack. Reports point out that he died of natural causes, as a result of a series of strokes, so prosecutors avoided linking the death directly to the invasion. But the coroner who signed the document said “everything that happened played a role in his condition”. Capitol Police also believe that Sicknick died in the “line of duty.”
“The horrific events of January 6, 2021, including the tragic and wrongful death of Officer Sicknick, were a direct and foreseeable consequence of the Defendants’ unlawful actions,” the lawsuit reads, adding that “Defendants are liable for the injuries and destruction that followed”. The document also cites the recommendations of the committee of parliamentarians that investigated the attack – the panel recommended that Trump be criminally indicted for his role in the invasion.
The other two targets of the lawsuit filed by Sandra Garza, who was the police partner, are George Tanios and Julian Elie Khater. They are accused of assaulting Sicknick because they would have fired chemical sprays at the agent – ​​both admitted guilt in the case. Another four security agents died after the invasion, but by suicide.
Trump faces a series of civil lawsuits related to his actions in what is considered one of the biggest attacks on US democracy. Last month, the parliamentary committee responsible for the investigation delivered its final report, describing in detail how the former president had “a multi-part plan to cancel the 2020 presidential election” and recommending measures to ensure that nothing like this can happen again.
The report revealed new evidence about Trump’s conduct and recommended that Congress consider whether he should be made ineligible. “The central cause of January 6th was one man, former President Donald Trump, whom many others followed,” the report said. “None of the events of January 6th would have happened without him.”
Two years after the episode that went down in US history, the FBI arrested more than 950 people – the investigation is considered the largest in the history of the agency. The breadth of the investigation indicates that the US government, via Joe Biden’s Department of Justice, does not intend to let the attack on the Capitol, described as an attempted coup d’état, go unnoticed.
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